Making Your Child Love Those Veggie
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Paving New Ways For Veggies
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Supper time usually turns into long hours of catering to your child’s
food jags! Isn’t it? Wondering where is the culprit? Well it’s right at
your child’s plate-‘The veggies’.
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Yes, children do not befriend vegetables easily in their diet.
Particularly at the preschool stage when they are more involved in
exploring their surroundings, they hardly bother to respond to their
hunger cues. A temporary dip in their appetite is what they may
experience. After winding up from their playing sessions when they come
back home, they want to relish something which they term as ‘tasty’.
E.g. packet of chips and wafers. The sight of green veggies may not
appeal to their wish list and not even to their taste buds.
Inculcating healthy eating habits from a very early age in your child is
what you ideally aim for. However, be encouraging in the process; don’t
forcefully impose any thing on your child. Let him adapt over a
particular recipe at his own pace. Arrange a small bowl of vegetable in
his plate. It can become a part in any form- salad, cooked, soups. A
good idea along the efforts is to also make use of one of your child’s
favourite food items in the meal. This peps up the child and builds in
enthusiasm in the course of trying out less tastier food items.
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He may not finish his bowl or probably pick two or three pieces, if
it’s a potato sabzi. But it’s important for him to get familiar with the
concept that vegetables are a part of a meal. Gradually over the
coming years, you will find that even he has taken up to eating them
really well. In the meantime, adopt some smart ways to include veggies
in your child’s diet.
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Toss vegetables like carrots, bell peppers, spring onions with whole
wheat pastas or noodles adding small amount of pepper and garlic. Your
child won’t resist this bowl to curb his hunger pangs. Some children do
enjoy eating few vegetables in the raw form e.g. chilled carrot and
cucumber sticks. Thoroughly wash these vegetables, dice them in to long
medium width strips, arrange them in a bowl and place it in the
refrigerator. Your child may want to reach for it, when he feels hungry.
Try flavouring them with healthy dips like hummus that goes well with
most of the vegetables.
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Get creative, as you follow simple innovative rules when preparing a
particular recipe. Interesting shapes, colours, textures and decorating
styles can help increase a child’s curiosity in his attempt to savour
new foods. This holds true, especially for veggies.
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It’s quite normal to see some children single out individual ingredients
out of a particular preparation. For example, a child may find ‘peas’
an alien addition to his bowl of peas pulav so would like eating the
pulav sans the peas. But this is not how it should be! Let them get
acquainted with vegetables in some other way before they are made to eat
them.
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Why not catching up on learning the same over a fun presentation or a
vegetable collage with your child? Dish out the vegetable pulav in a
vibrant tray. Segregate the veggies separately in a different bowl. Name
each veggie, while you represent a human face by having cauliflower
florets as nose; peas as eyes, frenchbeans as eyebrows and carrot
juliennes as a smile. Now let him also arrange the vegetables in his own
way. In the process, some mess is worth if your child learns to eat his
veggies without being finicky.
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Children are very observant by nature. They ape what they see. So if they see you eating leafy greens, they are likely to atleast try a morsel. Prod them to join you as well. Amongst all the veggies, a leafy green does top the list of disliked vegetables on your child’s food preferences. Some children may like eating alu palak wih a small phulka. But for others these leafy greens work better in a disguised form or a tastier version e.g. palak paneer. But how should you disguise them? Well, a leafy veggie like palak can be blended and added to rice for a healthy palak khichadi. They may be added to the batter of fermented recipies. For example, mini dosas and idlis. A small amount can also be stuffed in mini parathas and vegetable seekh kebabs. Soups and sauces too can incorporate some amount of veggies in them. E.g. vegetable chowder soup, spaghetti sauce. Veggie pancakes and baked products like muffins, cakes can have shredded veggies as one of their ingredients.
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